"I just read this on a blog that reviews a new book on the role "The Bottle" has played in British politics through the years.
I suspect that the most famous George Brown drinking anecdote of all immeasurably improved our diplomatic relations with Peru. At a grand reception in that country in the 1960s, the Labour Foreign Secretary tottered up to a figure resplendent in a fetching purple frock, and slurringly asked her for a dance. She turned him down with the response: First, you are drunk. Second, this is not a waltz, it is the Peruvian national anthem. And third, I am not a woman, I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.
Drinking and British diplomacy seem to be a volatile mix!